Three Ways to Break Through on Social Media

By

Gary Vaynerchuk

Nov 26, 2013 10:00 am ET

For me, the only way to break through on social media is to bring value to your followers, and the most important thing you need to understand about value is that it’s subjective. With that in mind, there are three different ways to play social that are truly valuable.

I, for example, go for access. Ninety percent of my activity on Twitter is just @replying to people and giving them answers. I’m developing personal context with people at scale. On the flip side, the content that I am pushing out are direct asks to buy my book. Right hooks to the Jabs that I used to develop that context.

Next, there are a lot of people who are gaining massive followings because they’ve got good jokes. Comedians tend to over-index because they’re clever and witty, two things that work extremely well when you’re constrained by 140 characters. This is straight-up original content creation. Make something funny, or thoughtful, or provocative that nobody else is making (or, maybe more importantly, that is just better than what everybody else is making).